Total pages in book: 73
Estimated words: 69413 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 347(@200wpm)___ 278(@250wpm)___ 231(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69413 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 347(@200wpm)___ 278(@250wpm)___ 231(@300wpm)
When we walked into the ballroom a minute later, I took Jamie’s hand in mine without thinking twice.
We made it just in time to watch Chase and Adam cut their cake, surrounded by dozens of cream-colored flowers. As we walked over, Jamie squeezed my hand when we saw Parker and his fiance standing at the edge of the crowd.
I watched Parker’s eyes flicker down, noticing my hand clasped with Jamie’s. His fiance had a sneer on his face, watching the cake getting cut.
“Our cake better not have lemon in it,” he told Parker. “I don’t want our wedding to be anything like this.”
“Huh?” Parker said, clearly barely listening to his fiance. “Sure, yeah. Whatever.”
Even through all of the turmoil of the day, I knew that this wedding was one of the most gorgeous ones I’d ever been to. It could have been photographed for a wedding magazine, for God’s sake.
And in a snap, I realized something I’d been totally blind to before.
Parker—and seemingly, his new boo—were the kind of people who would never be satisfied, with themselves or anyone else. At least not in this lifetime.
Breaking free of that vortex had been one of the best things for me, even if it had led to a world of pain.
I’d dodged a bullet.
“Holy shit, that cake looks so good,” Jamie told me as Adam fed Chase a bite and the photographers’ flashes went wild. “The pictures from this wedding are going to be epic.”
“I can’t wait.”
“And I can’t wait for a slice,” Jamie said. “You promised you were going to feed me one, and I’m going to take you up on that.”
“Damn right I am,” I said.
It was such a simple contrast, seeing the rude remarks Parker and his fiance made compared to the warmth Jamie brought to almost any situation. If I let myself, I could live in that world, too.
That warmth and positivity felt like a lifeline, after being closed off for so long.
And I was going to follow it.
15
JAMIE
I spent the rest of the night waiting for the other shoe to drop.
After eating the most delicious lemon-infused cake I’d ever had, Landry pulled me back out onto the dance floor. It was as if someone had flipped some switch in him, and all he wanted to do was dance—to fast songs, slow songs, and even wedding cha-chas. My feet were aching in the best way when the guests formed a conga line, snaking all around the dance floor.
I kept waiting for the moment when Landry would step back, like he had been doing all week. Waiting for when he’d get gun shy, or hesitate, or tell me I’d gone too far.
That moment never came. For the first time, I felt like I was seeing Landry’s whole self, not just the calm, controlled exterior he’d learned to project. He laughed harder. He smiled more. He touched me constantly, never looking around to see who would see us. I wouldn’t have thought it would be possible to like Landry more than I already did, but as the wedding went on, it was like he was finally free from some dreary curse he’d been under.
As long as Landry was willing to try—really try, with me—I was going to try, too.
I’d spent so long thinking I wouldn’t be ready to truly connect with anyone until… until I was stable enough. Rich enough. Established enough.
I’d never stopped to realize that someone could potentially like me just the way I was.
As the band played an instrumental version of Marvin Gaye’s “Let’s Get it On,” Landry and I took turns crooning on the dance floor, singing a mishmash of the parts of the lyrics we each actually remembered. At one part, we both totally flubbed the lyrics, and ended up in a fit of tipsy laughter, leaning against each other in the middle of the dance floor.
Landry put his fingertips to the bottom of my chin afterward, lifting my face upward to kiss me. The lights sparkled all around us as we kissed, and I heard a hoot and holler from behind me.
“Oh! Oooooh, what do I see here?”
I turned around to see Chase and Adam, on one of their many stops around the room. They’d been making a little circuit all night, trying to say hello to every one of the wedding guests, especially the ones who hadn’t been in the hotel all week.
They’d understandably been a little distracted all night, but they had definitely just seen me and Landry kissing.
“He… he just had something on his lip,” I joked, shrugging it off like it was nothing. “A little piece of frosting. Thought I’d help him get it off.”
“Looks like you’re certainly going to be helping him get off later,” Chase said, his eyes wide.
“Be right back,” Landry joked, “I think I need to smear a whole lot more frosting on my lips to get him to kiss me again.”